Sea levels could rise even faster, higher than feared: Study

Washington: Global warming could drive a much more dramatic
increase in sea levels than current projections suggest, scientists say, citing
a rise of 10 meters (33 feet) during Earth’s last warming interlude more
than 100,000 years ago.

Such a change far outstrips current projections and could be
catastrophic for vast swathes of humanity, a team at Australian National
University concluded in a study.

During the last interglacial period “sea levels rose at up
to three meters per century, far exceeding the roughly 0.3-meter rise observed
over the past 150 years,” they said in a blog about their findings,
published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications.

Over the last million years, Earth has alternated between
roughly 100,000-year-long cold periods — ice ages — and shorter, temperate
spells such as the last 11,500 years, known as the Holocene.

The scientists reported that during Earth’s last interglacial
period 125,000 to 118,000 years ago, when temperatures were only 1.0 degrees
Celsius higher than today, the sea rose 10 meters.

The findings do not necessarily foretell our short-term future
but they do provide a plausible analog for the consequences of manmade climate
change.

“Greenhouse gas emissions over the past 200 years have caused climate changes that are faster and more extreme than experienced during the last inter glacial,” the scientists noted.